A few listener emails in response to the question: What first made you want to move to New York?

From Listener Maria: I've got no songs to suggest, but I thought I'd share that I have
often thought that I moved to New York because of the years of Sesame
Street as a kid.

From Listener Wendy: I started coming to NYC as a child during the late-1970s, when I was a wee
girl. My Mom brought me to Chinatown on a regular basis, usually at
night. It was a particularly scummy time for NYC, and in Chinatown, it
often smelled terrible. I loved it. I liked the variety of darkness
endemic to NYC - dark in a way the suburbs weren't, darker it seemed, but
with lots of twinkling, buzzing, flashing lights. But no sky. All the
scenes in Taxi Driver where Travis Bickle is driving in his cab at night -
that kind of night.
I moved to Vermont when I was 17. I liked it there. But as I navigated my
way through my 20s, every time I read anything about NYC, especially
anything food-related - like Russ & Daughters, Chinatown, Murray's Cheese,
The 2nd Avenue Deli (RIP), I got very nostalgic. I moved here for a lot of
reasons. The final reason that sent me and the U-Haul here was the
knowledge that something bigger than myself, bigger than Vermont, was
waiting for me here.
And now I'm the Cheese Snob, taking over the world of cheese, in Manhattan
and beyond. I moved here because it was the right thing to do. But that Channel 9
Million Dollar Movie thing is pretty awesome, now that you mention it.

From Listener Jason: Another thing that attracted me to NYC was News 4 New York, especially
their coverage of the West Village Halloween Parade at the end of the
usual 11 o'clock broadcast on Halloween. It was the creepiest thing I
had ever seen, especially being from the suburbs, but it was
incredibly attractive as being the place where people were having fun
and could do anything they want - bigger, rougher, and scarier than
ever - and all at the same time being in as rough and scaray a city as it
was in the early 80s.

From Listener Johnny: I think of it often, it has a yellow banana on the cover: The Velvet
Underground's first album was a great advertisment for me to move to NYC
back in 1984. I wanted Femme Fatale to break my heart. I wanted to actually SEE
what the poor girl would wear [to] all tomorrows parties. I wanted to wear tight
black jeans and pointy boots and be an artist. Just like that.
Simple.
As far as entering the city if you come down the major degan (95?) and you see
the confluence of bridges, five or seven, the harlem river parkway connnecting
later to the GW bridge, there is what looks like a Roman aquaduct, even.. Where
do all those bridges lead, no one knows for sure.. but I never get tired of that
feeling of passing under them on the way to the island of Manhattan...

From Listener Rebecca: Why did I move to New York? Because it was a groovy option, sort of like the Oz thing and the Million Dollar Movie thing, I guess
we get to know cities through the sweet lens of the movies; all of it
presented to you exactly as someone else sees New York full of music
and particular lead charcters that best exemplify New York and of
course, street scenes where lots is bound to be seen even by everyday
folk-- though this isn't the reason I moved, it was one of the reasons
that deep down made it better to move here than to stay in buffalo:
the last scene of Arthur where trashy Liza Minelli walked a very
pathetic and drunk [Dudley Moore] down the steps of a church and they're
laughing and not looking all that together (like how other movies
tried to make you think of New Yorkers as fashionable and quickwitted)
then everything looked wider the way movies used to do at the end and
they drive away to the song "When you get lost between the moon and
New York City" a song that always used to scare me because where the
hell was between the moon and New York City? And also make me sad
because it was obviously a love song but it was in a minor key?
Maybe. Not sure.

Either way, I liked that a lot, even as a little girl.

From Listener Steve: Movies [like]
West Side Story, Midnight Cowboy, James Bond too, for some reason, probably the glam factor.
Music [like] Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery and jazz in general, music recorded at Cafe a Go Go
like Blues Project w/ Al Kooper, Lovin Spoonful w/ John Sebastian.

From Listener Andy: Spike Lee movies.

From Listener Jacob: I'd wanted to move to the city all my life, but I realized exactly why while
listening to a late night radio show one night back in Maryland when I was in
high school. The now defunct WDCU played a song which I have never heard since
and which I've been unable to find despite having looked extensively, entitled
"When You Leave New York You're Going Nowhere." Any chance you've heard of it?
The singer sounded a bit like Joe Williams.

Listener comments!

Tue. 9/11/07 2:17pm
Chris:
I wonder if I'm the only one listening to this show today, September 11, 2007...